Showing posts with label real estate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label real estate. Show all posts

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Dot Com Busted!

Who can forget the dot com bust of the new millenium? Apparently, millions of real estate professionals that's who! How is it that every time a new bubble appears on the horizon everyone and their brother forgets about the last bubble that busted or even worse, tells themselves that they are not in a bubble or that their industry is safe from bubbles...

Unbelievable...but it happened so there is no use fretting about it now. In my opinion, we need to buckle down and understand how each of us contributed in some way and how we can avoid this again. How do we do that? Personal accountability for starters. We can't control the whole industry, so we might as well control our own deals and actions.

Take the time to re-evaluate your business plan, if you have one. If you don't have one, create one. There is nothing complicated about it...keep it simple and realistic. I love to see a business plan that can be articulated in the form of a spreadsheet...words are nice, but numbers tell the real story. Make sure that your plan is sustainable. Sure, you might be able to make a killing on a particular deals, but how many times can you do that and furthermore, can you do that forever? The answer is probably not...so find a business or aspect of the business that you can maintain for an indefinite period.

Modest margins over the long-haul add up to more than you think. Just take the time and stay the course. The good news is that if you are still standing in the real estate industry today, you are doing something right. Keep up the great work and hang in there!

http://www.LocalRealEstateDeals.com

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Creativity in a Free Market

There is a buzz going around about the latest bill that is threatening the way that real estate investors do business. It is sometimes scary that those who are making the laws are out of touch with the reality of the businesses that they effect through their system of government.

Fortunately, we know better. We know that they are not addressing the real problem, but rather they are putting hand cuffs on the wrong people. We have the luxury of operating from the spirit of abundance rather than the spirit of scarcity from which the laws were created.

We need to trust that we will collectively find better and newer ways to conduct business. These laws that have been and will continue to be passed are meant to help, not to hinder. So, they are created in the right spirit, but the letter of the law is not going to be effective. It will, no doubt, keep a few people from conducting real estate transactions and most of those people are the ones that should not be investing in the first place. It is also true that there are some good investors with good intentions that will also find it hard to keep investing. Unfortunately that happens as well.

By and large, the best thing we can do as a real estate investment community is to follow sound business and ethics practices in everything we do. The real estate industry has a black eye right now, and we are all going to pay a little bit of the price. Let's do the right thing and create win-win solutions in every transaction...that is the best way to counter the laws that are coming to us right now.

Good Luck and God Bless America!

Robert D. Cass

http://www.LocalRealEstateDeals.com